NASA just paid $267,000 to SpaceX for an emergency plan to rescue astronauts from the ISS

A very interesting contract has appeared among NASA’s public tenders. And at a particularly interesting time.

A rescue plan. SpaceX on Monday received a $267,000 contract from NASA to conduct a “special study for emergency response” involving astronauts on the International Space Station and their return journey.

It’s a similar request to the one NASA received when it was considering bringing astronaut Frank Rubio back on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. Rubio spent 371 days aboard the ISS due to a leak in the Soyuz spacecraft that was supposed to return him to Earth.

A coincidence. This contract comes at an interesting time because there are two NASA astronauts in space who arrived at the ISS for a two-week test trip and are approaching two months due to a series of problems with Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft that are still being investigated.

Speculations linking the two events have not been slow to emerge after Reddit users discovered the contract in the government procurement database.

NASA doesn’t want speculation. The space agency has published a statement which denies the relationship between the substantial payment to SpaceX and the delay in the return of the Starliner ship.

“The study is not related to Starliner,” the statement said. “NASA is continually exploring a wide range of contingency options with its partners to ensure the safety of the crew aboard the International Space Station.”

“Over the past several years,” he added, “the agency has worked with its commercial partner SpaceX to provide greater return capability on the Dragon spacecraft in the event of a contingency.”

A plan b called Dragon. While it is not feasible to launch a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft overnight in the event of an emergency, the Dragon already docked to the ISS (the Crew Dragon Endeavour for the Crew-8 mission) has a real capacity for seven crew members, although NASA limits it to four.

That is, if Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore really had to be rescued, they would have room on the ship, and the feasibility of return would depend on other factors such as whether Boeing’s spacesuits would be compatible with Dragon and the safety of the astronauts added during reentry.

The Starliner still has no return date. In any case, astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore are not stranded on the ISS, but are waiting for NASA to authorize their return, which could happen at any time.

Nothing is stopping the ship from returning because there is plenty of helium despite the leaks. The reason there is no date yet is to continue collecting data to understand the leaks and failures in the thrusters, both for the safety of Suni and Butch and for the future crew members of Boeing’s new spacecraft.

Image | SpaceX

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